from JDF:

Our friend Jeffery Dean Foster sent this:



Here is a top ten list from a real music fan up in DC . thought you might like it. I'm gonna contact him and tell him he needs to plan a road trip for the 22nd considering his love of the OAK Team and J D Foster. (he's refering to a show he's doing with us at the Pour House on Jan. 22..ooops! I wasn't supposed to tell!)
best,
jdf

1. And I do mean ..1. Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass-kickin' Team. Some people are calling it the best album Dave Edmunds never made. I think of it more along the lines of NRBQ meets Rockpile meets the Stones. Not inspired writing; just feel-good straight-ahead dumbass redneck rock and roll. God I love this drunk!

2. Richard Thompson - Front Parlour Ballads. No inspired emotional work here either, but goddammit he can play.

3. Resentments - Switcheroo. A garage band made of of talented adults like Jon Dee Graham. They do "Little Bit of Soul" and Van Morrison and CCR. Well.

4. Don Dixon -The Entire Combusitble World in One Small Room. Not released yet. Downloadable at efolk music. I pretend not a whit with Don. There's plenty better than this cd, and it has faults. But I just love the sonofabitch. Any release of his will make my top ten.

5. John Prine - Fair and Square. For Prine fans, a joyous return. "Clay Pigeons" choked me up.

6. Eels - Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. Oh dude. This cd is ginchy. Really. Hey man, now you're really livin'.

7. Jeffrey Dean Foster - Million Star Hotel. Guy Neal Williams new poster boy. With good reason. Feed the poor and get something for it. Buy this guy's cd. Holy crap.

8. Childish Things - The tunes are the same, but the words get better and better. Alt. country's Lou Reed.

9. The Forgotten Arm - Aimee Mann. I needed some distance from this one. Like McMurtry, she recycles tunes and sentiments. But what I took as an average effort at the start of the year grew on me lyrically all year long. "I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up For Christmas" is a classic. She's not talking about a vacuum cleaner.

10. Marcia Ball - Live! Down the Road - These live tracks explain why people revere this woman in New Orleans. Her version of "Lousiana 1927", (she's been doing it for years) is by far the best version of the 5 billion we heard this year during 2 and 1/2 billion Katrina benefit concerts.